


Five ways Prentiss and Reid improved each other, accidentally-on-purpose. (And what Rossi has to say about it.)

by Hagar



Series: Take Seven [2]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: 5 Things, Drabble Sequence, Gen, Humor, Male-Female Friendship, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-25
Updated: 2010-05-25
Packaged: 2017-10-09 17:21:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/89814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagar/pseuds/Hagar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes one to know one, which is both why Prentiss and Reid frustrate each other so much and why it doesn't lead to defenestration. In which Emily and Spencer try to improve each other's bad habits, and end up improving their own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five ways Prentiss and Reid improved each other, accidentally-on-purpose. (And what Rossi has to say about it.)

**Author's Note:**

> For MerryArwen, who wondered what lifestyle improvements Reid achieved by trying to manipulating Emily into.
> 
> I may have also realized that 7x drabbles, in this fandom, are kind of symbolic.

Emily had had a cactus when she was twelve. She'd killed half a dozen potted plants by then, and the cactus was supposed to be easier. It wasn't. Reid was like that cactus, or like a cat: the appearance of needing less attention was misleading and on top of that there was the effort involved in figuring out how that attention should be given, in great and idiosyncratic detail. Cats actually took more dedication to care for than dogs which was why, ironically, dog personalities made better cat-people than cat-personalities.

Just another application of her ability to compartmentalize, she supposed.

**1\. You are as healthy as you eat**  
She's destroyed multiple frying pans before graduating to tv dinners. Reid claimed to have never destroyed a kitchen, but also couldn't cook so much as soggy pasta and evidently considered caffeinated sugar to be sufficiently nourishing. Processed foods beat sucrose and Reid would, in fact, eat anything that presented itself and didn't move, so she got in the habit of bringing extras. The pasta acquired veggie fillings over fatty cheese, and then became mutton rice, but Emily only caught up when she stared at her own breakfast and saw whole-grain cereals with nuts and fruits instead of the chocolate-y ones.

**2\. Closets are stuffy**  
Morgan put the first crack, but then it was Reid who made it a mission. Vonnegut geek did not necessarily imply other kinds of geekhood, but Prentiss's silence on anything she may like was suspicious. One geek could tell another, no matter how well the other was closeted. De-closeting was a matter of identifying potential foci of interest and then referencing said foci in a manner that would be recognizable yet implicit enough to induce an uninhibited reply, and Spencer told himself that this wasn't waiving the "no intra-team profiling" ban. He told himself it was entirely for Emily, too.

**3\. Introversion doesn't necessitate solitude**  
Introverted doesn't mandate withdrawn or shy, as Emily had learned on her own flesh. It means going home and closing the blinds when you're tired rather than putting high heels and going to a pub. Plenty introverts never learn that, and it drives Emily up the wall that Reid is one of those. Morgan ensures Reid doesn't bail on team nights, but then he's off dancing; JJ is great at anchoring Reid but she's socializing naturally, not deliberately; and so it's up to Emily to model what a healthy, adapted introvert acts like. The irony is not lost on her.

**4\. Compartmentalization only works for the short-term**  
Compartmentalization is a highly useful short-term coping technique and rather a dangerous long-term one. Things one doesn't talk about build up like steam in an engine; parts of one's identity cut off from each other are the psychological equivalent of a capacitor. It's something Reid learns triangulating Elle snapping and himself almost tailspinning and figuring out just why he resent Prentiss. This is going to hit Emily even if she doesn't believe it yet, and Reid will be there for it because it's his turn to save one and because he knows what it's like when that particular circuit closes.

**5\. Receiving help is a learned skill**  
Reid's uncharacteristic wrath over her attempt to reach out taught her more than she was comfortable knowing about his family, because receiving help is a learned skill that neglected or parental children don't have the opportunity to acquire. So she persevered, genius-directed vicious vehemence be damned, because Reid has to learn. Accepting help whenever you _could_ was the highway to avoiding burnout or getting yourself killed and there wasn't anyone on the team who couldn't get better at it, which was what she reminded herself when she gave up and walked up to Morgan with that stuck jar of jelly.

**…and what Rossi has to say about it**  
He wanted coffee and aspirin but this was so much better. Rossi stopped dead in his tracks and watched as Reid shouldered Prentiss out of the way, taking over what was clearly salad-mixing as the two of them argued hotly on the relationship between "hardcore" and "cyberpunk," while completely ignoring a gawking Morgan. Rossi spun on his heels, walked up the stairs, stuck his head in Aaron's office and asked if he had a moment and would he come over to Rossi's office. And when Aaron wanted to know what the scotch was for, Rossi had a damned fine explanation.


End file.
